Wyndham told Alice of the happy chance that had presented itself of a
dash at Lady Lakeden's portrait, and held out the possibility of the
Salon's finding a corner for it.
"How delightful!" she exclaimed. "Wouldn't it be brilliant to be in the
Salon as well as in the Academy?"
"It's just a dainty little study, and of course I'm doing it for the
pure pleasure of the thing. But the committee may not consider it
important enough for serious consideration, though that depends on what
I make of it. In any case I'll present it to her afterwards in
acknowledgment of all their past kindness."
"It's the nicest acknowledgment you could possibly make them. I am so
glad you thought of it." Her approval of the idea was generous and
eager. And she was excitedly interested in the Grosvenor Place
household. She plied him with questions. Was it an old peerage? Was
there a great country house? Had Lady Lakeden a brother? Then who was
the heir to the title?--would it pass to a collateral line? He
enlightened her on all these matters, sketching out for her the grooves
which the lives of such people generally occupied. And he threw out the
reflection that it was lucky indeed the renewal of his relations with
Grosvenor Place had not been delayed any further. He had gone back there
in the very nick of time, for the house was going to be shut up; the
earl leaving in a week or so to take a long sea voyage, whilst Lady
Lakeden meditated departure as soon as the portrait was done. Alice
remarked that they seemed to be fond of roaming about a great deal, and
Wyndham pointed out that Lady Lakeden and her father were exceptionally
placed, were to a great extent emancipated from the "swim." The earl had
practically retired from society, and his daughter, as a young widow,
naturally sought distraction in her own way, though of course she could
float brilliantly back into the world whenever the mood took her.
Since the portrait was going to the Salon, he was naturally compelled to
tell Alice about it. But the intense way in which she seemed to be
fixing her eyes on the Grosvenor Place household disconcerted him beyond
measure. This fresh interest of his had become her interest too; she had
fastened on it out of all proportion to its visible importance. At
uneasy moments he asked himself if she suspected that something lay
behind this apparently simple and innocent acquaintanceship; for her
insistent and almost morbid return to the subject on the following days
indicated its amazing hold of her.
Yet, obviously, it was impossible that she should be cherishing any
ideas of that kind. He flattered himself that his demeanour towards her,
in this trying and difficult period, was perfect; that he was as tender
in all their relations as if his heart were truly hers. Nay, he was
devoting even more of his leisure to her than ever before. And for the
very reason that the evening journeys to Hampstead had become
distasteful, he was the more careful that there should be no falling off
in his attendance there. In no wise could he have betrayed himself to
his affianced wife. No, she could not possibly have any suspicion of the
truth: he was satisfied that her preoccupation with the Grosvenor Place
household all arose out of womanly sympathy on her part; that Lady
Lakeden's tragic widowhood had touched the depths of her imagination.
Poor Alice! How simple and trusting her surface reading of the facts!
How ignorant of the brutal complications, as grotesque as incredible, in
which Nature often wrapped up human unhappiness!
What a terrible tangle it was for them all! Were he free now, how gladly
would his princess have placed her hand in his! In the old days the
possible marriage of the brilliant girl had been hedged around with
extraordinary limitations--to which he too had bowed as to something in
the order of nature. But, as a widow, she would naturally be expected to
please herself when matrimonially inclined. By common social
understanding, even the noblest and richest of widows may permit herself
a considerable latitude of choice, and no word of criticism can lie
against her unless she has travelled rather far out of the conventional
grooves. A marriage between him and Lady Betty now might raise a flicker
of interest beyond what was usual--considering his notorious
poverty--but it could call down nobody's censure.
But all this, alas! was but an idle speculation now. The time sped; the
earl bade him goodbye; and he realised that the end was fast
approaching. The few days that remained to him of Lady Betty's
companionship became trebly precious, to be counted with despair! Though
only an hour or two out of the twenty-four was spent in her society, his
whole heart and mind, his whole life, were concentrated there. Each day
he brought her a bunch of lilies of the valley, which she fixed in her
bosom and insisted he must include in the picture. And during the
enchanted time they were together, they talked freely and in perfect
trust. It was more than a friendship--more than an exchange of
confidences; it was more than the intimacy of a soul with itself--for
that is not always honest even at its most courageous moments. In this
free, splendid realm of communion with her, he stood up in all his
manhood: rising to that simple truth which is yet of the heavens and the
spaces; measuring himself against great standards; seeing and regretting
his egotisms, vanities, self-deceptions; valuing himself humbly. The
depths of Lady Betty's sympathy were indeed profound. She could enter
into his life, appreciate motives barely realised by himself, and, with
charming broad humanity, understand and forgive his actions even when he
felt ashamed of them as unworthy and discreditable. No comedy of
sentiment here--no playing of the saint on either side; but a noble
simplicity, a serene good faith, a spontaneous self-revelation!
He recounted to her, as naturally as everything else, the whole history
of his acquaintanceship with the Robinsons. He spared himself not a
detail: how he had first dallied with temptation, his moment of panic,
his specious reasoning, his ignoble surrender! He laid himself bare as
with a scalpel. Yet of Alice he spoke always with reverence and loyalty,
dwelling on her devotion, on the little she needed from him to give her
happiness. And Lady Betty caught his appreciation of her. "I seem to
know and understand her well," she said. "She is a delicate, untarnished
soul. She seems more real to me than people who have lived near me all
my life. And so her heart has gone out to me! I feel I could never bear
to meet her--the moment would be too terrible! Ah, why did you not speak
in the old days?"
"I repeat I had not the right. And then I did not dream I was worth one
single thought of yours."
"I gave you all my thoughts. You were so serious. You sat with knitted
brow, sternly in your work, and I hardly dared to come near you. You
seemed remote from women; grimly devoted to your purpose--to triumph or
to die! At poor me you scarcely deigned to look. And then you
disappeared, and I knew you would not return."
"I disappeared. I left happiness behind me, and retired into my living
tomb."
"My heart bleeds for you." There was a pause. Her eyes were full of
pain. But presently she broke the silence, as if discovering some crumb
of comfort. "This time at least you will not be going to privation."
"In my heart of hearts privation is preferable."
"Ah, no. Remember it is the call of duty. It is the sacrifice we must
make for Alice's sake. She is a good woman. Her life must not be
broken."
"I promise I shall try to make her happy--whatever the cost. But think
how happy we should have been together, you and I, darling."
"We should have been happy together," she said in a low voice. "It
would have been a perfect union. But I say again that life is a
compromise. Our demands are great; we have to accept the little that is
granted."
"Yet the door still stands open," he mused. "We may yet take our fate
into our own hands."
"The door stands open, but we turn our backs upon it."
"We are too strong," he groaned. "I am tempted to pray for weakness."
She drew herself up, her face alight with a noble radiance. "Let us both
be proud of our strength. We have set right above everything."
"But suppose we are mistaken--" he urged tensely.
"We cannot strike her down! No, no, we must not take away her great
happiness--you have given it to her! I depute you, if you love me, to
guard her welfare--on my behalf and on your own. Remember, too, she is
happy with so little!"
"I shall be a loyal husband. But, in the realms that lie outside her
penetration, you have promised that I may cherish the thought of you as
an inspiration."
"To speak to you with my own voice--to help you to the strength that
cannot falter!"
But the end was close upon them. He could not linger over the picture,
even had he wished. As the last days slipped by his face saddened
visibly. Lady Betty begged him to bear up. He was so changed in aspect
that Alice could not fail to notice it.
"There is no danger," he returned. "She has already spoken of it, and I
have put it down to fatigue. She has seen how desperately I have been
working for months on end, and she is satisfied I need rest."
One day, he ventured to question Lady Betty about her plans, but she
replied that they were vague. She only knew that she would travel for
the present; she would not make up her mind as to details till the last
moment.
"But even then I should not tell you," she added, with a wan smile. "Our
parting must be decisive. I shall read of your career, and my mind shall
be always with you in your work; but I shall not cross your path again.
There is one last thing I suggest. When you have finished the picture,
let us spend the whole of our last day together."
"I shall set it apart. We shall consecrate it with our farewell."
"I shall give you the souvenir I promised. I shall keep it till the end;
and then it will be goodbye."
"Goodbye?" he breathed. "Oh, it is cruel!"
He was shaken again. Some wild rebellion was rising in him, and vainly
Lady Betty tried to calm him with pleading--even with tears. But she
revealed only the more her own anguish.
At last she had command of herself again, and put a stern inflection
into her voice.
"For Alice's sake you must conquer yourself. No, let it be for my sake.
I put it as the test of your love for me. Otherwise I shall believe that
your love is selfish."
"I promise I shall conquer myself, but I must have time."
"You make me terribly afraid--you may wound her by a chance word."
"That is impossible. Her mind is serene--no word of mine shall disturb
it."
But Lady Betty's fears were by no means allayed. She wrote him long
letters, imploring him to keep command of himself, else she would regret
bitterly that they had ever met again. They had both fought this
terrible battle: they were neither of them emerging unscathed, but their
wounds and hurt were the price of honourable victory. She was sure of
herself; but was he--the man!--to shrink back when the supreme moment
came? The thought of loyal duty accomplished would bring equanimity
hereafter.
"Ah, if all were only a dream!" he exclaimed sadly, as he lay thinking
of nights. And then he would try to believe that he had not met Lady
Betty again, had never even heard of her since her wedding-day. He had
never made the acquaintance of the Robinsons, had never set foot in
their great ugly house at the corner. Were not all these things the
fancies of a disordered imagination, and was he not still here in
Hampstead, in his narrow iron bed up on the gallery? To-morrow he would
jump up and make his miserable breakfast as usual, would think of
working without being able to raise a hand, and would potter away the
hours. And at six in the evening he would see his prosperous neighbour
from the City go past with noiseless, gentle step, bearing a plaited
rush-bag with a skewer thrust through it. Yet what a relief to throw off
the illusions of these latter days, and find himself again as of old,
free of all the tangle; even though the problem of bread still faced
him, and the vista of hopeless days stretched away endlessly!
Alas! the morning light, filling his panelled bedroom and revealing to
his eyes the many luxuries of these prosperous days, testified only too
convincingly to the reality of recent developments.
And yet, as he turned up the well-known Hampstead street of an evening
on his way to the Robinsons, he would still struggle again to recover
the illusion that the old days were yet. Approaching the house as it
loomed in the near distance through the wintry mist, he would imagine
himself supremely unconcerned with it. And then he would stop outside
his own former door, and fumble in his pocket a moment as if to find the
key. Like lessons learnt after the mind is set, all these later
accretions to his existence were ready to drop away, to have a shadowy
relation to him. It made him realise with astonishment how easily he
might cut the Robinsons out of his life, and proceed as if he had never
known them. His bond of obligation was more real to him than the people
to whom he was bound!
He was shrewd enough to see that in his heart of hearts he was sullenly
and perpetually angry that so much had come to him from so extraneous a
source. Where his own strength and gifts had failed, these people from a
world that was not his world, either in thought or mode, had come in and
brought him prosperity. This galling sense of absolute dependence on the
Robinsons seemed the deepest humiliation he had known. They had given
him food when he was nigh starvation; they had given work when the
prospect of work had vanished--had showered on him benefits and
kindnesses innumerable. They had restored him to society and to the
world of art and letters. He owed them the confidence of his bearing
before the world, the manly swing of his step, the pride of his glance.
That this should be his destiny was horrible! He rebelled and cried out
with all his might. Oh! to wield the sceptre of destiny himself!--to
shape the evolution of a brilliant career and merit the crown of a
great love by his own power and performance!
And yet at the back of his troubled mind there lay in terrible calm the
stern determination to stand by his obligations. His promise to Lady
Betty was in no danger. All this feverish agitation was but as the surf
beating on a granite shore. He knew that he would bow his head in
resignation; that, after the parting with Lady Betty, he would settle
down as the most attentive of husbands; acquiescent of an atmosphere of
physical well-being, yet paradoxically living from hand to mouth, so far
as his deeper life was concerned; thankful for any morsel of good each
day might bring him, and looking not beyond its horizon.
Alice should have her happiness, never guessing what turmoil and torture
two souls had voluntarily undergone for her.